How technically competent do we need to be?

How much do you reply on other people and how much do you need to know? Being frustrated when the website is due to go live but doesn’t happen due to holidays and key people or 1 person only being responsible for the technical side or some unknown reason.

My favorite saying “whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t you’re right” – doesn’t help as it is out of my hands.

So when I reflect back on my technical journey over the period of this project, although I have come a long way …… is it enough?

Having managed a cohort of students within an e-portfolio and used a range of social networking sites, I thought I was reasonably savvy. However, the reality it that to be a technical expert and to understand and manage code is not the level I want to get to.

So far, I have branched out with all forms of media a few examples are :

Shopping for food, books, clothes on line

Booking flight tickets on line

Contributing to forums

On line surveys

Manage my finances/banking on line

Set up our twitter account : @leaplikeasalmon

Set up Face book fan page: @leaplikeasalmon.com

Updated LinkedIn : Leap like a salmon

I used to buy fictional books and monthly leisure magazines, I now buy the latest in web design and technology and most of my books are on marketing, using social media and CPD.

Therefore, I am a lot more technically enabled and have explored areas that are new and had to learn new skills. I do not need or want to be the technical expert … but speaking their language helps!

Where would we be without google? Thanks to their search engines everything becomes accessible.

10 Key lessons:

Have an understanding but keep to your area of expertise.

Have confidence and rely on the technical team to do their job.

Sometimes too much information becomes confusing, keep it simple.

Agree deadlines, objectives, who responsible and always have a contingency.

Communication is key, be consistent and agree best methods and feedback.

Get advice from people independently.

Timescales agree in advance and monitor.

You can’t plan for unforeseen occurrences but how you deal with it and having a contingency in place will assist a positive outcome.

Build in progressive reviews and regular feedback opportunities

10.Keep flexible, there is always a better way to do something. Things not going as expected gives you the opportunity to analyse why and ensure as much as you are able that targets and progress is achieved.

“To achieve all that is possible we must attempt the impossible…. To be as much as we can be we must dream of being more.”